


Thy Eternal Summer

by Tousled_Sky



Category: Original Work
Genre: All relationships are mentioned, Other, References to Shakespeare, Sonnet 18, Story about fanfiction, not super shippy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-18
Updated: 2017-03-18
Packaged: 2018-10-07 03:51:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,236
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10351686
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tousled_Sky/pseuds/Tousled_Sky
Summary: These stories - these fanfictions - are not confined to a static, corporately-owned plot. Instead, they are free to scramble across the realm of possibilities like grapevines up a trellis; growing green with foliage and heavy with fruit.





	

**Author's Note:**

> "But thy eternal summer shall not fade / Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow'st / Nor shall Death brag thou wander'st in his shade / When in eternal lines to time thou grow'st / So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see / So long lives this, and this gives life to thee" - William Shakespeare, Sonnet 18  
> Just a story about fanfiction, and my feelings on it. Hope you enjoy, loves <3

They live still. Though the stage curtain has been drawn, the actors have taken off their capes and crowns, and the stage is now empty, and the theater dark and silent, they live still.

Shall I compare them to a summers day? Nay; I shall not. Not because they are lovelier or of a more temperate complexion; no, not at all. They are dark and violent and human, bruised and lonely and alive. Nor are they at all like the rough winds of May; they are far too solid, too sentient.

The only comparison, as far as I can see, is how both their story and summer's lease hath all too short of dates.

The curtain falling is never something I can get used to; the end of the adventure - feeling akin to saying goodbye to a friend, knowing you'll only ever see them again in photographs of the past. Neither can I quite become used to the first scene after the introduction song and sequence - the feeling hectic and confusing. For who are these people? Who are they within this universe? What is their place in their world?

They remind me of the acquaintances I used to make at the park as a child - other children I had never met before, but yet as soon as we exchanged names, we ran together through the bars and platforms of the park. Under the eye of heaven that would far too hot shine, we explored together, exchanging and sharing with one another words and secrets and affection.

And as we parted ways for the day, we parted ways forever. People whom I loved, but whom my time with was cut so very short. I never learned of who they had been; never learned of whom they grew to be.

The same, it seems, is true for theses porcelain dolls on the screen before me, these paper cranes spread through the pages of this novel. Whom were they before their creator put them to the parchment? They were no one. They don't have any part of themselves that isn't used to further the plot - the story is what they're made of, there's nothing else. So they exist only between the front and back covers of this book, between the first and last episodes of the series.

It's just as my friends existed only for those days in the park - not that they died, but they vanished from my sphere of the world, from my sight and my mind. So, too, do the characters when I finish their story.

But unlike my childhood companions, these characters do die, in a sense, when those final credits roll across the screen. And the final knife to their existence (just as the dagger was to Juliet) is when the words "The End" flash across the screen before it fades to black; as do their perceptions. For they have now fulfilled their purpose. There is nothing left for them here, so why would they stay?

How could they stay? How could they remain when there is no one to sketch their movements, no one to write their adventure, no one to vocalize their words as they read the book aloud, read the script to a microphone?

Yet, though they cease to live, they don't quite completely die. They don't grow old and change with the passage of years, feel time change their minds, their bodies, and have their shell sleep beneath the Earth when their soul reaches the sun at last. Nor do they pass in an accident, far too young for such a fate, people weeping for them as their ashes are given to the wind to carry across the sky along with their spirit. No, they simply exist suspended in time; like someone cryogenically frozen, they still _are_ , but what they _are_ is asleep in those blank pages at the end of their book. Eyes closed, chest not rising or falling, immobile but _there_. Unliving, but with the potential for life.

And often, that potential is realized and used by those whom have heard their story.

So their existence shall continue, like an eternal summer that shall never fade. Nay, not whilst those whom hear their story - you and I - live on. We repeat it, remix it, share it. We explore an abandoned theater and find the props that were once the robes and riches of a selfish, cruel king in the long-since past play of Hamlet. But we take them into our own hands and change them - make them the flag and stolen bounty of pirates on the high sea, or the magic carpet and forgotten treasure of Aladdin.

We use the names and faces of those whose stories we've followed and not much else; opting for new stories, new dialouge, and even new settings. We create art - not from nothing, but from the forgotten, the finished. And with this, we make something entirely new. Something no longer confined to the static, corporately-owned plot of the original story, but free to branch off into "Out of Character" arcs, into entirely separate "Alternate Universes." These stories are free to scramble across the realm of possibilities like grapevines up a trellis; growing green with foliage and heavy with fruit.

The informant of Ikebukuro and the golden haired monster of the city sleep and cuddle together in a bed, climb the pyramids of Egypt as the sun sinks into the sand of the desert's horizon, kiss against the walls of one of Tokyo's alleyway in the rain. The two red-eyed boys of Homestuck spar with skills and strife specibus and sexual tension on the meteor's roof, tease each other with candy and butter during a viewing of Con Air next to an oblivious John, trudge through the snow of a dream bubble side-by-side. A young orphaned aristocrat and his "devilishly" talented butler are a werewolf and a vampire whom deal with murder and coming-of-age trials as they fall for one another, study and teach at a university whilst being more than just student and professor, are a worker and a customer at a coffee shop.

Whilst these new stories keep showing up in the tags of searches in online sites, their names shall live on, and so shall they. Their skin will regain color as their hearts regain rhythm and push the blood once more through their veins; they shan't lose possession of that fairness, the life, that they own'st. They shall not wander in Death's shade, become his possession for him to boast of.

The lines we type and put upon the internet shall not expire, but they will inspire; new content shall be created because of - grow'st from - these eternal lines.

Alive they stay, in our minds and hearts, and life flows from our veins to fall from our fingertips, not dripping red liquid but, rather, letters. Words. Legends. We fall besides our sleeping stories, our fallen fairytales, our comatose chronicles, and kiss them to fill their lungs with life once more - like Prince Charming with Snow White.

And they're given new life, new purpose, new voice through our hands, our minds, our breaths.

So long as we can breathe this life into them, or eyes can see the world we've created in the lines of text that could have been typed next door or a world away - they live still.

For so long lives this, this gives life to thee.

**Author's Note:**

> Virtual cookies for anyone who can guess the fics I was referencing in the paragraph talking about Shizaya, Davekat, and Black Butler! *holds cookies enticingly*  
> Hint: Only five are real fics I've read, and the other four are just plots that I thought would be likely for that pairing.


End file.
